


hope to die

by mornen



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Acid Rain - Freeform, Angst, Character Study, Child Neglect, Childhood, Death, Illness, Meteor City, Pain, Poison, Starvation, Violence, cannibalism mention, character past, graphic depictions of starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:09:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27336184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mornen/pseuds/mornen
Summary: It’s hard to tell seasons in Meteor City where everything is covered with smog and grime and the sky rains acid on you for the crime of living, but a flower’s come up from the cement, with all the determination of a dandelion.Uvogin picks every leaf and eats them even though they are bitter and tainted with the poison in the air, still touched by the dust. But the leaves are green, and they sting his teeth because it’s been so long since he’s eaten anything fresh, green. He studies the yellow of the single flower, the petals that stretch out like a sunburst in the middle of the rubbish, persisting despite the smog, growing despite all hope. He doesn’t pick the flower. If it grows old it will turn into a head of grey and the seeds will scatter, and then maybe there will be more yellow flowers, with more green leaves.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	hope to die

It’s hard to tell seasons in Meteor City where everything is covered with smog and grime and the sky rains acid on you for the crime of living, but a flower’s come up from the cement, with all the determination of a dandelion. 

Uvogin picks every leaf and eats them even though they are bitter and tainted with the poison in the air, still touched by the dust. But the leaves are green, and they sting his teeth because it’s been so long since he’s eaten anything fresh, green. He studies the yellow of the single flower, the petals that stretch out like a sunburst in the middle of the rubbish, persisting despite the smog, growing despite all hope. He doesn’t pick the flower. If it grows old it will turn into a head of grey and the seeds will scatter, and then maybe there will be more yellow flowers, with more green leaves.

He slides a finger into his mouth. His gums are bleeding. He’s not stupid. He knows that if your gums keep bleeding you’re going to lose your teeth, and he’s running out of baby teeth to lose. He swallows down the blood. Not enough blood to lose. His nails are bitten to the quick because you can’t lose those minerals either. They know how to live, these unpeople. 

They just don’t do a very good job of it. He stands and his vision swirls with stars and grows black before he can see again. He needs to get stronger. He needs more food. He’s going to live, fuck everything. Fuck everyone. 

He yanks the flower from the ground and eats it too, flower and stalk both, though they are bitter, bitter, and the petals are a strange velvet in his mouth. There’s no use in waiting for it to grow and create more flowers, because someone else is going to eat it before then, and if someone is going to eat it, it will be him. 

He strides down the street even though he’s swaying because he’s not going to let people know that he is. And he keeps his head high because if he bends if, even for a moment, someone’s going to come and crush him down. He forces each step to be as loud as he can manage. He makes eye contact with anyone willing to make eye contact with him. 

And his lips are stained yellow from the flower. But that’s fine because it wasn’t going to last. Nothing lasts. So you have to take what you can get when you can get it. 

And that’s the law of this world, and you don’t get another one, no matter how the weak might pray. 

So here he stands and here he strides and he has yellow on his lips and yellow down his throat, but he will find something more, and if someone stops him from taking it, he will kill them, because there isn’t enough in this world for everyone, and he won’t be one who dies. He won’t let anyone ruin his chance. 

And it’s spring, and there might come more flowers, and he’ll eat those too. And he’ll eat the dead, and he’ll eat the living if he can kill them, because they’re all dying, aren’t they? And he’s not going to, because there’s something more than the grey and the death and the pain of each morning when his stomach wakes him with its aching, pitied in on itself. 

The sun rises yellow, a haze through the smog, and it will set the same way, and he will grow taller, and he will grow stronger, and he will take anything he can, anything he wants, anything that could save him. Because there’s someone else dying on the street, with a hollow face and glazed eyes, and he’s not going to be that. 

And no one and nothing will kill him. And he will live each day and wake and scream into the air and scream and scream and scream and it will be a scream of power that will curdle blood and send people running. 

He screams, and the scream rattles through the makeshift buildings, and people do run, so he laughs, even though his lips are stained yellow and blood drips from his gums down his teeth and across his lips, down his chin. He wipes it with the back of his hand and licks the blood and swallows it. 

He’d eat his own arm before he died. Cross his heart. Hope not to die. Stick a needle in his eye. 

He screams again, and his throat aches, but he doesn’t care because it’s just pain. And you can live through pain. Like you can live through anything if you just try enough, and he’s scrambling to live, clawing his way up to life with nails bitten to the quick, and swear to everything holy, everything unholy, he’s going to live. 

He screams again, and the scream breaks on a high note, but still no one comes to chase him, because his scream sounds like anger and desperation and desperation is often the only thing you need to win in a fight. 

Bite their fucking throat out. All you need are teeth, and he’s filed his teeth down so the points are sharp and rip into flesh. And he’s going to live. And he knows it. He can feel it. His heart is beating, and his steps aren’t even, and he’s faint, and he’s fainting, but no one could tell, because he keeps his head up, and he stares straight, and he snarls at anyone who looks at him, with sharp teeth, with blood still on them, with every will to live that he’s found through the years, he walks. And someday he’ll walk right out of this place and rip open the door to a house filled with the greedy, filled with the rich, and he’ll eat them too, with just his teeth, filed to points. With just his hands, nails bitten to the quick.

And he’ll laugh then. And he’ll scream. And he’ll live. Cross his heart. Hope to live. Stab them with a homemade shiv.

**Author's Note:**

> requested on tumblr ❤️


End file.
